Need help identifying a F24 film camera accessory from WWII

by mcvittal

Hi all,

At work today someone donated this old piece of equipment. I'm not entirely sure what it does, but I have figured out that it was designed by the RAF around WWII in conjunction with the F24 aerial photography camera, manufactured by Houghton-Butcher. Any help on identifying what it's for would be wonderful. I couldnt disassemble it since most of thr screws were either too rusted to use a screwdriver or stuck.

Photo album of all the stuff here:

http://m.imgur.com/a/okwPW

Bigglesworth_

So the first item is a contact printer; military designations are often of the form noun, adjective (e.g. "boots, flying") hence the "printer contact" wording. It was used for manually printing images from an F24 camera film; [the printer being used in this Imperial War Museum Photograph] (http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205208852) looks a lot like yours. It might have been used by a [Mobile Field Photographic Section (MFPS)] (http://www.jshawmsc.f2s.com/mfps.htm), units that followed RAF reconnaissance squadrons to rapidly process and print their films. These units had large, mostly automated, Multiprinters, but could use manual contact printers as a backup, or for more specific jobs. Overseas bases without more sophisticated equipment also used contact printers, as [described by George Thompson in this "People's War" interview] (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/92/a7977892.shtml).

The second, as the plate says, is a film magazine. The film roll (final item, in case that wasn't obvious!) was loaded in the magazine, and the magazine then attached to the body of the [F24 camera] (http://www.airrecce.co.uk/cameras/raf_ww2_cameras.html). The F24 was used extensively by the RAF for medium and low altitude photography (the larger format F52 was developed for high altitude work), perhaps most notably by the various photo reconnaissance variants of the [Spitfire and Mosquito] (http://www.airrecce.co.uk/cameras/allied_camera_fits.html).